Oh Brave New World That Has Such People in it.
This is part two in a two-part series on how popular dystopian novels are, in fact, completely dumb. The series has two parts because there are only two popular dystopian novels. Aren't there?
There are two things that upset me about "Brave New World". First and most importantly is the author's winking assertion (surely it is understood among us smarties he says) that this is not a very nice world at all. When I read this book it is like somebody taking me to the art gallery and showing me a lovely painting and asking me to agree that I would rather hang myself than have it in my living room.
The world depicted in this novel is a very nice world -- almost an ideal world -- and I will never understand why it upsets people. Oh the people of this world are venal and naive and helpless. Why should we care? The author admits that the government has no malicious plans. It only wants you to be happy. Is there some kind of autonomy fetish among the readers of this book? Does it really bother people when the government gives them free drugs and a good job?
That brings me to my second gripe. Huxley's way to show us how bad his Brave New World really is is to bring in a man from outside it, John the Savage. How inconsistent is that? In order to demonstrate to us what an unhappy place this would be to live (and by live he can only mean be born, raised and die) he makes us look at the world from the point of view of a man who spent the first twenty-odd years of his life living somewhere else.
You might as well try to convince me that Greenland is a bad place by filming a documentary about a Libyan forced to live there. Of course he's going to hate it. That's not the point. The point is how it would be if we were brought up there. And with the exception of Bernard Marx (who feels differently from the rest of his Brave New Worlders solely because it is convenient for the story plus some lame excuse involving birth defects) the people who were born in BNW and have lived there all their lives seem to love it. Who are we to deny that? Especially since it is explicitly stipulated by the author?
This is a problem that is common to all social engineering fiction. The whole idea of science fiction is to show us a world and make us feel like we live there. But we can't really feel like we live there unless we have been indoctrinated along with them. As it is we have no right to suppose that we know what is better for the residents of BNW than they do.
Incidentally this is a problem with Nineteen Eighty-Four as well. Are we supposed to assume that there is something about Winston Smith, our proxy in this book, that makes him incapable of interalizing Party doctrine? Why would you write a book about the one malcontent in a society? If you are trying to really describe Oceania or BNW wouldn't it make more sense to focus on someone more representative? Sure a book about Lenina Crowne would be very boring but at least it would not be pernicious.
There are two things that upset me about "Brave New World". First and most importantly is the author's winking assertion (surely it is understood among us smarties he says) that this is not a very nice world at all. When I read this book it is like somebody taking me to the art gallery and showing me a lovely painting and asking me to agree that I would rather hang myself than have it in my living room.
The world depicted in this novel is a very nice world -- almost an ideal world -- and I will never understand why it upsets people. Oh the people of this world are venal and naive and helpless. Why should we care? The author admits that the government has no malicious plans. It only wants you to be happy. Is there some kind of autonomy fetish among the readers of this book? Does it really bother people when the government gives them free drugs and a good job?
That brings me to my second gripe. Huxley's way to show us how bad his Brave New World really is is to bring in a man from outside it, John the Savage. How inconsistent is that? In order to demonstrate to us what an unhappy place this would be to live (and by live he can only mean be born, raised and die) he makes us look at the world from the point of view of a man who spent the first twenty-odd years of his life living somewhere else.
You might as well try to convince me that Greenland is a bad place by filming a documentary about a Libyan forced to live there. Of course he's going to hate it. That's not the point. The point is how it would be if we were brought up there. And with the exception of Bernard Marx (who feels differently from the rest of his Brave New Worlders solely because it is convenient for the story plus some lame excuse involving birth defects) the people who were born in BNW and have lived there all their lives seem to love it. Who are we to deny that? Especially since it is explicitly stipulated by the author?
This is a problem that is common to all social engineering fiction. The whole idea of science fiction is to show us a world and make us feel like we live there. But we can't really feel like we live there unless we have been indoctrinated along with them. As it is we have no right to suppose that we know what is better for the residents of BNW than they do.
Incidentally this is a problem with Nineteen Eighty-Four as well. Are we supposed to assume that there is something about Winston Smith, our proxy in this book, that makes him incapable of interalizing Party doctrine? Why would you write a book about the one malcontent in a society? If you are trying to really describe Oceania or BNW wouldn't it make more sense to focus on someone more representative? Sure a book about Lenina Crowne would be very boring but at least it would not be pernicious.
posted by apk01004 at 11:20 PM
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